Chen wrote:They reduced the radius on frozen orb explosion which just means you need to actually aim it a bit more. I wouldn't call it nerfed into the ground. The electrocute/prodigy nerf hurt the build more I'd say, though APOC and more regen passives (and templar) help that.

Yeah I was being a bit too concise in my previous post. I actually meant that the combination of these two nerfs makes my build impossible. Just the FO nerf I could have handled, but the electrocute nerf significantly reduces the number of FOs I can throw in a given time. The end result is a huge reduction in damage.

An electrocute / FO build was never very good against elites. The great strength of the build was that trash mobs died pretty much instantly. This is no longer the case, the AoE is much smaller and you can throw fewer orbs, so the build is now overall much less attractive.

I've tried the Arcane Torrent build, but I wasn't convinced. Of course I have no bonus arcane gear at all, so that doesn't help. I do like the idea of Arcane Torrent though. I definitely want to get back to that one day.

For now I'm trying a Ray of Frost build. I found a legendary orb that gives my ray of frost pierce (Light of Grace I think it's called). With Black Ice rune and Black Hole with Absolute Zero I now go through mobs extremely fast. And Ray of Frost has a very high proc rate, so with just 4 APOC and no resource reduction at all I can keep it up quite long. If I can get some resource reduction (or perhaps lightning armor with the -3 AP cost rune) I think I can keep it pretty much indefinitely. If that is possible I can drop the signature spell completely and get something like teleport to greatly increase my survivability.

I also dropped Glass Cannon and instead got the passive that gives you bonuses for standing still. It's nice.

It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I have an independent mind, you are an eccentric, he is round the twist- Bernard Woolley in Yes, Prime Minister

faranim wrote:Sucks that the new Hellfire ring has a level requirement. Is it even possible to farm up the Level 60 Hellfire ring once you've bought the expansion? It seems like I am never going to achieve all of the old Challenges which required a level 60 cap (e.g. crafting radiant star gems, now that Marquise drop).

Yeah that annoys me as well. There shouldn't be impossible challenges.

I also did some extremely hard challenges at inferno, and blizzard just deleted them and replaced them with identical challenges at torment. Which is quite absurd given that old inferno was much harder than current torment I.

It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I have an independent mind, you are an eccentric, he is round the twist- Bernard Woolley in Yes, Prime Minister

Unless there's new info in the last week, the level 70 hellfire ring shouldn't have a level requirement (not my image). There was a rumor a while back that it would, but that was based on a bug in the beta or something.

Been Trying to Level my Cutesy little Crusader (Named Aribeth). I was going to say I'm not a big fan of the new system (no more normal/nightmare/inferno) until I socket that Marquise Ruby gem in a socketable weapon. Instantly buffed the weapon to 230+ damage, which means I can adjust to higher difficulty and gain more xp. Chances are with better gear you can level your toon faster. On the other hand it'll really suck if you don't find anything and is stuck doing everything on normal.

Now I feel pretty sad that the first character able to tear thru Torment 1 is my none of my 60ish characters but rather my 30ish level crusader, but at least she's levelling like a breeze even when she's soloing.

Also maybe because of the higher difficulty level, my crusader felt like she's made out of tissue paper against elites.

Current build:

(Left click: Justice with Crack, have been considering using hammer of pursuit instead)(Right Click: Fist of the Heaven with Heaven's Tempest)#1 Shield Glare with Zealous Glare#2 Iron Skin with Explosive Skin#3 Law of Hope with Wings of Angels#4 Heaven's Fury with Ascendancy (hoping to get Split Fury soon)

That build makes me feels like I'm playing a wizard most of the time (but with less utility and raw power) I was going melee close range until I realised that range gives more survivability as I have to kite elites. Even with a more melee build I feel like Crusader as a class is just a bunch of abilities strapped together and doesn't have a coherent theme. They got abilities that makes them a bit tanky, they got auras like a monk (but without the direct self heal), It got some of Wizard's Aoe, but Crusaders didn't bring any new abilities to the table. They aren't "in your face" like a barbarian, nor do they survive forever like a monk, and they definately aren't glass cannons like DH or Wizard. I feel Blizzard will overhaul some of Crusader's mechanics in the future.

I think i'll need recommendations for a good 60+ Crusader build.

P.S. I also found a lvl 35 Legendary Ring with +35% MF. MF is not dead!!! (but no MF found in any rare/blues thou)

MF is still found on some gear, but it's largely worthless. Only 10% of your MF applies to finding legendaries, which is really not that much. Given how often legendaries already drop, it's such a marginal increase in drop chance that you may as well ignore it completely.

The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Obby wrote:MF is still found on some gear, but it's largely worthless. Only 10% of your MF applies to finding legendaries, which is really not that much. Given how often legendaries already drop, it's such a marginal increase in drop chance that you may as well ignore it completely.

That's silly. If it's not going to meaningfully slow you down, then the MF is worth it. Finding 3% more legendaries isn't huge, but in the long run it will add up.

The Great Hippo wrote:I am starting to regret having used 'goat-fucker' in this context.

Obby wrote:MF is still found on some gear, but it's largely worthless. Only 10% of your MF applies to finding legendaries, which is really not that much. Given how often legendaries already drop, it's such a marginal increase in drop chance that you may as well ignore it completely.

That's silly. If it's not going to meaningfully slow you down, then the MF is worth it. Finding 3% more legendaries isn't huge, but in the long run it will add up.

Obby wrote:MF is still found on some gear, but it's largely worthless. Only 10% of your MF applies to finding legendaries, which is really not that much. Given how often legendaries already drop, it's such a marginal increase in drop chance that you may as well ignore it completely.

That's silly. If it's not going to meaningfully slow you down, then the MF is worth it. Finding 3% more legendaries isn't huge, but in the long run it will add up.

If it means out of the total loot you find, an additional 3% will be legendaries, then that is indeed massive.

If it means that out of the total loot you find, the amount of legendaries you find in a given time period (on average), increases by 3%, then that isn't very big at all. There's a 25% difference between Bounty and Rifts, and it's still barely perceptible. Arguably, if the choice is between being this or that more likely to find a legendary, and killing shit faster, it must also be recognized that the latter option increases the amount of rolls you make for dropping legendaries per some unit time.

I edit my posts a lot and sometimes the words wrong order words appear in sentences get messed up.

According to the website, it applies to the item quality roll, as a multiplier to the item's chance to be legendary. Not 100% sure how that impacts the amount of legendaries you actually find.

In any case, I agree. It's only worth it if you're mowing through stuff pretty much exactly as fast as you would be, which is mostly plausible, since magic find is a secondary affix, but you're not wearing a Nagelring over a Ring of Royal Grandeur or a Stone of Jordan or something.

The Great Hippo wrote:I am starting to regret having used 'goat-fucker' in this context.

They just want to make a game that's entirely based on syngergies of gear and build but try to hide the results of that with a trio of ficticious approximations of DPS, healing, and toughness.

Your DPS is very dependent on what skills you use and how often and gear buffs for those skills. "raw" DPS isn't even raw as some buffs do not need to be activated and others that do can be sustained forever.

Your toughness makes several whonky assumptions, like dodge cuts a percentage of your damage even though it does nothing against DOT skills like desecrate elites. It also doesn't understand one with everything or numerous other combos

your healing is perhaps the most egregiously incorrect number as prot rates are all over the place. LOH works in mysterious ways.

It's not like Blizzard cares much. They seem to prefer a system where you have to go to an internet forum to understand half of what's going on and why you should do this or that. Prot rates should be shown on the skill description, just as one example. They're pretty fucking central in understanding how things work.

Title: It was given by the XKCD moderators to me because they didn't care what I thought (I made some rantings, etc). I care what YOU think, the joke is forums.xkcd doesn't care what I think.

Every class has a decent spread of debuffs and group buffs, so it'd be neat to get some more information on how helpful they are. I started using BBV in a Rift group where I was the only WD and I feel it made a huge difference, but, alas, no way to really tell.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

that's even more fancy. You want to know the extra damage generated from your BBV's attack speed boost? I don't even know how you'd calculate that. Attack speed runs into frame clipping for how often you actually attack. The damage scale isn't even correct.

Diablo is full of dirty details

Title: It was given by the XKCD moderators to me because they didn't care what I thought (I made some rantings, etc). I care what YOU think, the joke is forums.xkcd doesn't care what I think.

mosc wrote:that's even more fancy. You want to know the extra damage generated from your BBV's attack speed boost? I don't even know how you'd calculate that. Attack speed runs into frame clipping for how often you actually attack. The damage scale isn't even correct.

Diablo is full of dirty details

At best you could get the uptime of BBV on each of your party members. Other than that, I agree with mosc that it'd be absurdly complicated to try and figure out what the "impact" of it was. Even with the incredibly detailed WoW combat logs, buff uptime was generally the best you'd get out of a parser. You wouldn't get the real impact of that buff in any quantifiable numbers.

Nono, I was more suggesting that all the group buffing/enemy debuffing makes DPS meters already kind of a poor overlay of what's going on. But they do provide a ton of stats on your character sheet; it's a shame they don't provide more, I feel.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

Coming from Path of Exile I was more frustrated by the lack of numberness. I still can't get over how stupid it is that they base all spell damage on your weapon damage. Once I figured out that expert difficulty existed the actual gameplay became fun, though, so at least there's that.

"It is bitter – bitter", he answered,"But I like itBecause it is bitter,And because it is my heart."

Spambot5546 wrote:Coming from Path of Exile I was more frustrated by the lack of numberness. I still can't get over how stupid it is that they base all spell damage on your weapon damage. Once I figured out that expert difficulty existed the actual gameplay became fun, though, so at least there's that.

I like the fact its based off weapon damage. It always felt kinda unfair in D2 where casters didn't need jack all of a weapon except for its ancilliary stats (+ skills notably) whereas the melee characters needed a strong weapon AND one that had other stats.

Spambot5546 wrote:Coming from Path of Exile I was more frustrated by the lack of numberness. I still can't get over how stupid it is that they base all spell damage on your weapon damage. Once I figured out that expert difficulty existed the actual gameplay became fun, though, so at least there's that.

I like the fact its based off weapon damage. It always felt kinda unfair in D2 where casters didn't need jack all of a weapon except for its ancilliary stats (+ skills notably) whereas the melee characters needed a strong weapon AND one that had other stats.

Yeah, this. 'Weapon damage' is just a stat that indicates how your abilities will fare with the weapon. It's, if anything, an example of number transparency in the game.

I'm curious, Spambot and Enokh, what numbers you feel are obfuscated in D3.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

I was sort of glaring at my computer last night when I got new Witch Doctor abilities, read the description, and was like "Okay. . .but what does it actually DO". So apparently I just need to actually look at the options menu.

This was good information to run in to.

Though, yes, proc coefficients would be nice, but I'm used to having to figure that out anyway.

Enokh wrote:I was sort of glaring at my computer last night when I got new Witch Doctor abilities, read the description, and was like "Okay. . .but what does it actually DO". So apparently I just need to actually look at the options menu.

Which ones? You can also hit Ctrl whiel hovering over abilities to get numbers.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

Enokh wrote:I was sort of glaring at my computer last night when I got new Witch Doctor abilities, read the description, and was like "Okay. . .but what does it actually DO". So apparently I just need to actually look at the options menu.

Which ones? You can also hit Ctrl whiel hovering over abilities to get numbers.

Soul Harvest was the first big one for me -- it just kinda said a general "You siphon the energy of enemies around you and it makes you better!" thing.

Izawwlgood wrote:I'm curious, Spambot and Enokh, what numbers you feel are obfuscated in D3.

I don't want to speak for Enokh, but my complaint was about the lack complexity, not the transparency. Near as I can tell (and admittedly I haven't looked in depth at the mechanics. Here's hoping I'm not making a fool of myself) the only numbers that matter in determining DPS are weapon damage and primary attribute. Compare that to other games where a spell has an amount of damage it does. Weapons may have the above-mentioned ancillary stats to influence that, but it's silly that how big and heavy my hammer is has any bearing on the jar of spiders I just threw at you.

They did it this way because they wanted a simplified skill system where you don't level up skills the way D2 and PoE do, so they needed a way for the skill you got at level 1 to be just as relevant then as at level 99. Only way to do that was to tie it to something that changes as you level up: weapon damage. This also allowed them to maximize the degree to which your character is gear dependent which was especially important back when they were making money on the Auction House.

That said, on the subject of transparency, I wouldn't mind a little more transparency on spell damage. I'd like to be able to bring up a menu that shows not just "does 170% of weapon damage" but also "with your current gear this is 150-180 damage at 1.1 attacks per second" so I don't have to try to figure out how the intelligence and damage boosts coming from gear other than my weapon are factoring in. I know this can be done because Path of Exile does it.

"It is bitter – bitter", he answered,"But I like itBecause it is bitter,And because it is my heart."

I really disagree with you Spambot, but the first like... 8 pages of this thread will outline why I feel the skill system doesn't actually translate to a reduction of complexity. Furthermore, 'leveling up skills' isn't, to me, more complexity.

Spambot5546 wrote:Weapons may have the above-mentioned ancillary stats to influence that, but it's silly that how big and heavy my hammer is has any bearing on the jar of spiders I just threw at you.

I think you're overthinking it; for example, my Crusader has an ability called shield slam, that does ~300% weapon damage and ~300% shield block amount in damage. The animation is him slamming his shield forward. Why should my weapon damage factor into this at all?

Because weapon magical power numbers! Attack Power is just a measure of how badass your gear is. And as for how you think it's too simple; there are a few stats that feed into actual damage. Crit chance and crit power, additional elemental damage, etc. Just like in every other MMO out there. In PoE, you could equip a wand that gave you +20 int. That's the same thing that's happening here, except with more stats.

Spambot5546 wrote:so they needed a way for the skill you got at level 1 to be just as relevant then as at level 99.

Except the skills all change over time, and you can use whichever one best fits your build.

Spambot5546 wrote:That said, on the subject of transparency, I wouldn't mind a little more transparency on spell damage. I'd like to be able to bring up a menu that shows not just "does 170% of weapon damage" but also "with your current gear this is 150-180 damage at 1.1 attacks per second" so I don't have to try to figure out how the intelligence and damage boosts coming from gear other than my weapon are factoring in. I know this can be done because Path of Exile does it.

That's all evident from your weapon. Weapons show how many attacks per second they'll let you do. And I believe there is a way to see how much damage that translates to, but in anycase, it's kind of irrelevant since all skills are listed in terms of % of weapon damage (or shield block, in the case of Crusader). So, who cares?

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

Izawwlgood wrote:I think you're overthinking it; for example, my Crusader has an ability called shield slam, that does ~300% weapon damage and ~300% shield block amount in damage. The animation is him slamming his shield forward. Why should my weapon damage factor into this at all?

You're answering a case where it doesn't make sense with a case where it does. One of the things I like about Path of Exile is that they distinguish between "spells" and "attacks". Both are skills, but one is modified by weapon damage and one is not. So yeah, shield bash influenced by weapon damage. Great. I'm down with that. Frozen beam influenced by weapon damage? Hi, I have a call for you from someone called "Immersion" and they say you're completely breaking them.

Izawwlgood wrote:That's all evident from your weapon. Weapons show how many attacks per second they'll let you do. And I believe there is a way to see how much damage that translates to, but in anycase, it's kind of irrelevant since all skills are listed in terms of % of weapon damage (or shield block, in the case of Crusader). So, who cares?

Primary attribute also factors, and I've found a few items that give +x% damage to certain skills. A Wizards and Witch Doctor's both have offhand items that can increase damage, too. Any of these influences my DPS, but none of them are reflected when I hover over my weapon.

Learning of this "Elective Mode" alleviates one of my big peeves, though. I'll have to look into that next time I'm on.

"It is bitter – bitter", he answered,"But I like itBecause it is bitter,And because it is my heart."

Spambot5546 wrote:You're answering a case where it doesn't make sense with a case where it does. One of the things I like about Path of Exile is that they distinguish between "spells" and "attacks". Both are skills, but one is modified by weapon damage and one is not. So yeah, shield bash influenced by weapon damage. Great. I'm down with that. Frozen beam influenced by weapon damage? Hi, I have a call for you from someone called "Immersion" and they say you're completely breaking them.

But every one of the Wizards attacks are magical in nature, so, naturally, he's using the weapon he holds to produce magical attacks. Shrug, doesn't seem like an immersion issue at all to me.

Spambot5546 wrote:Primary attribute also factors, and I've found a few items that give +x% damage to certain skills. A Wizards and Witch Doctor's both have offhand items that can increase damage, too. Any of these influences my DPS, but none of them are reflected when I hover over my weapon.

You're pointing to an issue with two handed v one handed items though. If my WD is holding a shield that gives +int, and I equip a crappy two handed weapon, I may reduce my DPS.

Ultimately, I'm not really sure why this is problematic for people. WoW had the exact same thing going for it and no one batted an eye.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

Izawwlgood wrote:But every one of the Wizards attacks are magical in nature, so, naturally, he's using the weapon he holds to produce magical attacks. Shrug, doesn't seem like an immersion issue at all to me.

Or no weapon at all! The point is that certain weapons are supposed to be good for some things, and others for some thing else. A sword cuts, great. A wand focuses magic power. Also great. But in Diablo 3 a very sharp sword focuses magic power better than a dull sword, and a highly attuned wand makes a shield bash harder than a poorly attuned one. Why? It shouldn't work that way. It doesn't make sense.

Izawwlgood wrote:You're pointing to an issue with two handed v one handed items though. If my WD is holding a shield that gives +int, and I equip a crappy two handed weapon, I may reduce my DPS.

Ultimately, I'm not really sure why this is problematic for people. WoW had the exact same thing going for it and no one batted an eye.

I don't think I'm explaining myself right. I mean, yeah, sometimes a one-hand weapon + shield out DPSes two hander. That's not the problem. The problem is that it's hard to tell whether it does because the hover only compares the weapon to the other weapon. Nor do I get any feedback on specific skills influenced.Example:

I have a ceremonial dagger with 20 DPS and a fetish that adds 3-5 damage and gives me +10% damage to blow gunI have a two hander with 40 dps.

When I compare the two, the game is going to tell me that the two hander does twice the DPS of the dagger full stop. I have no way to know if the off-hand fetish adds enough to make up the difference, especially when I add in the bonus for blow gun.

"It is bitter – bitter", he answered,"But I like itBecause it is bitter,And because it is my heart."

You can usually approximate it by simply equipping the 2 different item sets and looking at the overall DPS number in the character screen ("raw dps").

This doesn't take into account bonuses like "+15% Fire Damage" or "Skill-X deals 20% more damage", but it's pretty easy to add those bonuses in yourself.

You can also turn on damage numbers, and just test it on trash mobs. The yellow numbers are crits, white numbers are normal hits. I sort of wish they had a training dummy in one of the towns to do this on. This would also help regarding resource usage/generation (e.g. how long can I spam this spell until I run out of mana, and how much damage does it do).

Elective Mode and the more detailed tooltips are pretty much mandatory once you reach endgame. I was super frustrated until I realized those options exist.

Yeah comparing whether a combination of items is better than another you use the DPS indicator on the character screen. For builds where you run out of resources, comparing your attack speed is important too (ie have 1m sheet dps with 2.0 attack speed is the same damage per hit as 500k sheet dps with 1.0 attack speed). Having it appear on the skills itself is irrelevant because the skills are just a multiplier to your base damage. Not to mention the item tooltips show whether it increases or decreases your damage output in a general way anyways (not including +skill and +elemental though and I think it still kinda screws up 2 handers vs 1hand+offhand).

Spambot5546 wrote:Or no weapon at all! The point is that certain weapons are supposed to be good for some things, and others for some thing else. A sword cuts, great. A wand focuses magic power. Also great. But in Diablo 3 a very sharp sword focuses magic power better than a dull sword, and a highly attuned wand makes a shield bash harder than a poorly attuned one. Why? It shouldn't work that way. It doesn't make sense.

To be nitpicky, class specific weapons are a thing, so you'll never have a wand boosting shield bash. But yes; this is generally how the game works. A better weapon will make your magic missile and your frozen orb and your spectral blades better. A better axe will make your axe throw, chop, and stomp better. It makes least sense for Witch Doctor perhaps because of how odd and random all his abilities are, but it's akin to Wizard; a better sword will make the Witch Doctors acid splash and gargantuan and poison darts better.

I don't think that's a bad thing, I think that's a good thing. I found it extremely annoying in D1 to walk around as the sorcerer with a kickass blade and basically just chop things up.

Spambot5546 wrote:When I compare the two, the game is going to tell me that the two hander does twice the DPS of the dagger full stop. I have no way to know if the off-hand fetish adds enough to make up the difference, especially when I add in the bonus for blow gun.

Yeah, as Chen points out, just look at the raw DPS listed on your character sheet. It won't take into account '+10% specific skill' stuff, but otherwise it's exactly what you're talking about.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.